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The Six Month Question Despite over five million open jobs, the average job seeker remains unemployed over six months and over one third of unemployment insurance claimants are still exhausting all of their benefits, without landing a job. This is costly for employers and job seekers alike. The average claim against an employer’s unemployment account is over $5,000 and, for job seekers who are parents, a six-month or greater spell of unemployment nearly tripled the rate of poverty.

Three Ways to Help a Friend Back to Work With 2.2 M people still stuck in long term unemployment and another 6 M hoping to get back into the labor force, we all tend to know someone who’s struggling to land a job. Many of us, especially those of us in jobs that touch workforce topics, such as HR or unemployment, are expected to know something about landing a job; and we often do. But it’s often difficult to know exactly what we can do to help. Fortunately, with the right approach, job seekers can improve their chances of landing a job by nearly 600%.

The Impact of Layoffs on Employer Branding At 75 million workers, Millennials are now the largest generation in our workforce. According to studies, they are cause-oriented and more focused on who they work for and why. They’re also socially-driven and highly connected. For a growing generation of workers, how an employer treats employees at exit matters. In a workforce now dominated by Millennials that are empowered by social media, the implications are stronger than ever, both for the culture of those left behind in a layoff as well as those sizing up an employer’s brand when considering a new job opportunity.

The Big Unemployment Insurance Write-Off: The national unemployment rate has dropped to 5.1%, yet 39% of UI claimants are still “exhausting” their benefits – often at six months which costs employers over $8,000 per claimant. Some consider these claims a sunk cost, but it doesn’t have to be money down the drain. Research shows that job seekers can improve their likelihood of finding a job by nearly 600% with the right kind of help. In this month’s Reemployment Insight, learn how exhaustee claims and average claims can be reduced by one to two months, saving $1,300 to $2,600 in claimant charges.

1.5 Billion Reasons to Retool UI Work Search There’s a lot of talk in states and DC about what’s called Work Search Integrity – a US Department of Labor (DOL) measure designed to ensure that unemployment insurance (UI) claimants are meeting state requirements to actively seek work. It’s the leading cause of Improper Payments in our UI system and its leak rate is 4.5% of annual claims, costing over $1.5 billion for the year ending June 30, 2014. For context, that’s more than 15 times the cost of one of the Department of Labor’s more effective job search programs (the Reemployment Eligibility Assessment program).

The Hidden Half Monthly, up to five million US jobs remain open – waiting for the right job seeker to show up. At the same time, our unemployment rate ranges between 4-6%, with 7-9 million workers looking for jobs and nearly a third of them stuck in long-term unemployment – over six months without work.